Warren man, woman convicted for causing Hazel Park girl's drug death

Leslie Metcalfe and Donald McCoy, entering the courtroom for their trial last week, were convicted of delivery of a controlled substance causing death for which they face up to life in prison.
Macomb Daily File Photo

A Warren pair was convicted Wednesday of supplying heroin and fentanyl that caused the death of a 16-year-old Hazel Park girl about a year ago.

A Macomb County jury deliberated less than two hours before finding Leslie Metcalfe, 41, and Donald McCoy, 56, guilty of delivery of a controlled substance causing death for the fatal overdose Sirena Lawson, 16, in January 2017. They also were convicted of delivery of less than 50 grams of a controlled substance.

The pair face a minimum prison term of roughly about 15 years in prison and a maximum of life when they are sentenced March 7 by Judge Edward Servitto in Macomb County Circuit Court.

The trial began last Thursday.

The overdose occurred at Metcalfe’s mobile home near Nine Mile and Dequindre roads in the early morning hours of Jan. 7, 2017, after Lawson contacted Metcalfe seeking drugs. Metcalfe asked McCoy, her neighbor, to go to Detroit to purchase four packets of heroin for the group, including Lawson’s boyfriend, Wayne Williams. Williams was hospitalized and survived an overdose.

Advertisement

Lawson and Williams paid McCoy $40 to $50 to purchase four baggies of heroin.

Assistant Macomb Prosecutor Dena Keller praised the verdict.

“I’m very glad the jury sent a message to drug dealers that they can’t be so reckless with other people’s lives, especially a 16-year-old girl,” she said. “People need to realize that heroin is being laced with fentanyl.”

Keller said she also was glad for justice for Lawson’s mother, Shelly Wilfong.

“My heart breaks for her,” she said.

The lawyers for Metcalfe and McCoy said their clients weren’t aware the heroin also contained the deadly fentanyl, which like heroin is an opioid but is much stronger.

Metcalfe’s lawyer, Joe Kosmala, said he was “surprised” but “not awestruck” by the verdict.

“The jury instructions in the delivery case make it a pretty easy case to prove,” Kosmala said.

Kosmala argued to the jury Metcalfe couldn’t be sure the product was heroin as she was “only told it was,” and had no idea it contained fentanyl.

“That’s why people are dying all around the country,” Kosmala said. “They don’t know it’s fentanyl.”

McCoy’s attorney, Azhar Sheikh, said the verdict “flies in the face of justice,” due to his client’s minimal involvement, saying he merely bought the drugs from a dealer in Detroit, gave them to the group and left.

But Keller responded McCoy should have known he was providing a drug to a minor.

“Donald McCoy had plenty of time to think about what he was doing when he got the money for the drugs, got the drugs and gave it to them even though he knew how impaired they were” on Xanax, she said.

Information about where McCoy purchased the drugs was passed along to the Warren police drug unit for further investigation, Keller said. She did not know the status.

Kosmala also blamed Lawson for her own demise. Lawson not only sought out the drugs but ingested five Xanax tablets about seven hours before she took the heroin. The Xanax, however, did not cause her death, a medical examiner concluded.

Kosmala conceded jurors probably negatively viewed Metcalfe’s lies to authorities and Wilfong, who inquired that night about her daughter’s condition via text messages to Metcalfe, who assured her Lawson was “safe” and claimed she didn’t know what she had consumed. Wilfong blamed Metcalfe for her daughter’s death in emotional testimony. Metcalfe lied 15 times in all, Keller said. She also lied to paramedics and police when she said she didn’t know what Lawson ingested.

Of his client’s reaction, Kosmala said Metcalfe “hasn’t had a lot of good things happen to her and this is another thing that hasn’t gone right.”